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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572376">Dear Edward Kaspbrak</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Passcha/pseuds/Passcha'>Passcha</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Bisexual Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak Has ADHD, Eddie has a father, Eddie is a newcomer, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, High School, M/M, Musicals, Original Character(s), Polish Eddie Kaspbrak, Some Humor, Teen Romance, Teenagers, a little bit arrogant Eddie, drama club, sometimes characters are a little bit stupid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:41:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Passcha/pseuds/Passcha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie’s therapist told his mother that the boy needs a change of scenery for at least a few months, because New York is putting too much pressure on him. Sonia decided to send her son for one academic year to his father living in Portland.</p><p>Eddie continues to do drama but not at the Broadway level, and it angers him the most, because he doesn’t believe that in a small town there can be at least someone loving theater and musicals just like himself.</p><p>AU! School production of the musical "Dear Evan Hansen".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dear Edward Kaspbrak</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>THE WORK IS IN PROCESS </p><p>Spotify playlist (will be updated): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2mZkNLgdUL2vSk4SHPLNDS?si=50IVpY0VQJWgCUIYeHBgKg</p><p>All songs that‘ll be used here are in this playlist and you don’t need to spare your time finding them. </p><p>♫ I‘m not sure there will be or not sexual activity but I want to say that all characters are 17 or over it.</p><p>♫ And yes, I‘m a Russian person and I don’t know everything about American lifestyle, so if you see something that is strange for you, it is because I write it basing only on TV shows and movies. And also I know English not perfectly and if some use of words will seem strange for you, you know why. I’m sorry for it and I just really love IT characters, so here we are.<br/>Russian version of DEK: https://ficbook.net/readfic/9679130</p><p>♫ I warn you, I didn’t study in drama school and btw Russians and American schools are SO different, so I’ll write as I think it is possible in such places (but I don’t mind if you as Americans will correct me).</p><p>♫ Well, and one more thing. I want to make this work not very intricate and stressful, so there will be not very logical things somewhere, probably, that's why I apologize in advance.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h2>1. The Moving.</h2><p><strong>8/22/20</strong><br/>
</p><p>
  <em>“Dear Edward Kaspbrak,<br/>
</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your life sucks right now. It seems that it’ll never be better. Mom sent you to this shitty town called Portland and there is not even a direct flight. Why am I writing this at all? I am even talking not only flights and about coaches. There are no direct routes to fucking Portland BY ONE COACH!!!!<br/>
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It‘s been a change in Boston recently, and I don't know how much Pinky will stand, because she's very scared by the past crazy lady who was sitting next to me. Worse than this madam is only a man who has been listening to "Country Roads"¹ for almost half an hour, as if we are now going not north, but to damn Virginia. But seriously, I’m going to freak out listening to John Denver pleading with those damn country roads to get him to place he belongs. I know that I belong to New York, and where are my songs about this? Except "I love New York" by Madonna, that was covered in "Glee" ².<br/>
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I see absolutely no point in writing all this nonsense, but Dr. Graham says it‘ll help me cope with "the stress of a change of residence." As if she’d forgotten that it was she who made my mother send me out of New York for a year.<br/>
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am annoyed by everything. I want to go back. I want my theater school back. You’ll read this letter a week later and you probably already know how lame the local drama club looks, which cannot be compared to your school. I can't believe my mom decided to ruin my future career when all her life she wanted me to perform on Broadway.<br/>
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want my friends back, Courtney, Mike, Harry, Anastasia. I want Will back.<br/>
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want my home back”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Eddie sniffed, saving the document. The laptop had to be lifted a little so that he caught the Internet and make the email for a week to sail freely, and then returned it to him at the end of August.</p><p>The man who listened to the same song without interruption looked askance at Eddie, who was catching the connection.  Well, yes, he did not find more time to write this letter. His mother called half an hour ago during the change and brushed the subject line, reminding Eddie that the prescribed pills didn't give him the advantage of avoiding other treatments.  And speaking about pills–</p><p>After sending the letter, Eddie put the laptop in his backpack, ramming it carefully, he just had a bunch of things in it.</p><p><em> “And if it’s cold, kochanie, take a sweater. Well, not a sweater, so a blanket, Eddie, dear, don't be stubborn. Have you already taken Adderall? Eddie, Dr. Graham says you need this, she is a very good specialist, she knows better how you need to be treated, don’t be stubborn. No, you are. Take these cookies. How not to? You put food for your rat, and you yourself will be hungry? No, Eddie, drogie, not just seven hours of the road, but FULL seven hours!” </em> — and so on according to the list of the instructions of the mother.</p><p>Eddie pulled one cookie from the classic multi-grain BelVita package, opened the top of Pinky's cage and broke off a piece of cookie to give to his pet, who happily accepted the treat from his hands. Eddie popped the rest into his mouth, dusted off his fingers and unzipped the other section of the backpack where he kept the box of pills.</p><p>He was prescribed Adderall after failing his 11th grade exams.  He was too focused on drama and gave all of himself it, and he just– didn't want to study. He could not concentrate on subjects no matter how hard he tried, although he took out all the previous years (it worth mentioning that with no big success). Dr. Graham had long hinted to his mother about a medical treatment for Eddie's ADHD, but Sonia doubted for a very long time, paying extra for additional appointments with the therapist because she did not want to add Eddie to drugs, as she called it. Personally, the boy himself did not care exactly how he would be treated, he almost insisted on pills himself, because almost all of his classmates took something to maintain concentration, and they did not look like drug addicts at all.</p><p>“Miss Skowrońska, it is the necessary measures nowadays if you want your child to keep up with the rest of the world,” Eddie’s therapist told his mother with a sweet but convincing smile, and Sonia gave up. After all, Eddie needed to improve his marks. But in addition to the prescription for Adderall with huge instructions (which Sonia learned by heart and forced Eddie to do it so that “he would not become addicted”) Dr. Graham recommended reducing the number of adverse stressors. And from those appointments that she had with Eddie, the woman determined that the fast, unbridled life in New York, which Eddie had lived as long as he could remember, should be eliminated for at least six months. Even just a summer at his father's in Portland would not have "helped" Eddie, because he had to do something for another three months. And Sonia decided to send Eddie to his father for a whole school year, so that he would finish 11th grade in a more relaxed, measured atmosphere and move on to graduation, which he will already hold in New York.</p><p>After this decision, Eddie felt betrayed by his own therapist and mother, because if he wanted pills for a more fulfilling life, then moving to some wilderness in the north of the country he DIDN’T. It meant losing everything: friends, theater, Will. They had only been dating for a month, and– he, too, was one of the factors that prevented Eddie from properly preparing for his exams. And his mother wasn’t against his sexuality, she rather disliked Will precisely because he "prevented" Eddie from going to 12th grade. As if Kaspbrak no longer had any responsibilities like participating in a play of Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” (where he had the main role, Theseus) or the final exams at a music school. An ordinary, boring, gray study with chemistry, biology and geometry was disgusting with only its numbers and their combinations with letters. He just did not want to understand this, so he could not concentrate. The exact and natural sciences were not for him.</p><p>So, without passing the exams, Eddie was subjected to the anger of his mother, who made a scandal in the series <em> "I told you that this boy will affect you badly."</em> So, they just had to break up, although there was no big disappointment, because he and Eddie did not have great love. They just had the same life goals, both wanted to become actors, which is why they rehearsed a lot together, considered themselves a little (better) more ambitious than others — well, why not start dating on the basis of similar interests? And still, the fact that Sonia was involved in their breakup infuriated Eddie, and he quarreled with his mother rather because of the principle that he himself can choose whom to date, and not because he was really upset about the breakup. </p><p>That's how he postponed himself at least three months before he packed a huge suitcase, a backpack, bought his  rat a new, more spacious cage (not because of the move, but because he wanted to but put it off) and went to the seven-hour disgusting “travel” to Portland.</p><p>His father had to meet him at the station, and Eddie didn't even know how he felt from the upcoming meeting. The boy took out the phone, seeing 43% of the charge on it, put AirPods in his ears and turned on the music. Deep keyboards entered.</p><p>Eddie stared out the window. So at least John Denver's voice was not heard from the neighboring headphones.</p><p><em> ♪ Hold up<br/>
Hold on<br/>
Don't be scared,<br/>
You'll never change what's been and gone ♪ </em> ³</p><p>A smirk appeared on Eddie's face as he recognized the song. He did not feel any special love for her, but now it is like Dr. Graham, and his mother and friends, and even his father — all of them, together with the lead singer of the “Oasis” group, tried to calm him down and make him come to terms with what was happening.  And about the father.</p><p>Eddie had a strange relationship with him.  The last time they saw each other in person was so long ago that Eddie did not even remember exactly how old he was.  Fourteen? Thirteen? He didn’t like Portland and its stifling cramped space, so the last time he was there is even longer. When he saw his father last time live (it was New Year, because at Christmas Filip had some plans of his own), Eddie could not help thinking how far this man was to him. Shy, down-to-earth, slow, with no lofty goals other than his high school drama club and part-time job as a French teacher, Eddie’s father seemed to him like a kind of– loser, to put it bluntly. For Eddie, who from childhood was literally instructed to become a future Broadway star, and who accepted this desire of his mother and now decided to achieve this goal in his own way, it was not clear why his father decided to settle in a small town, forgetting about his dreams that he wanted to realize, having emigrated to the States.</p><p>Eddie's parents were familiar in childhood, when they lived in Poland, and then Sonia's family moved to the United States when she was ten years old. The Skowrońskis have always been a wealthy family, so it was not difficult for them to give their daughter a decent education at the Tish School of Arts. Sonia was not a bad actress for her time, but now such acting would be considered as <em>over</em>acting.</p><p>When she was in the second cast of Broadway plays, her distant acquaintance, Filip Kasprzak, who moved to New York much later, contacted her. On the basis of common roots, they became close, although they would never have done it if they had stayed in Poland, because they had completely different views on life. Sonia dreamed of an acting career, Filip dreamed of <em>teaching</em> art. But they had <em>Eddie</em>, although they didn’t be even married. Sonia decided to leave him his father's surname, although it was confused in the documents (probably the strange sounding of a heap of consonants nearby could not be understood) and it was not Kasprzak, but– Kaspbrak.</p><p>So, Edward Kaspbrak was on his way to Portland, absolutely not ready to meet his father and not really wanting it. And his eyes were gradually sticking together under the Oasis, while his head was lowered on a soft pillow for the neck in the shape of Totoro, which Courtney gave him before leaving, having bought it sometime in Japan. Eddie missed his friends already.</p><p><em> ♪ We're all of the stars,<br/>
We're fading away.<br/>
Just try not to worry,<br/>
You'll see us someday♪ </em>³</p><p>Eddie really wanted to believe in it.</p><p> </p><p>The bus stopped at the terminal point about 10 PM. When Eddie opened his eyes, he felt terribly crumpled and tired, as if he had not slept at all. From his chair, he got up rather like a machine, not paying attention to the music that was still playing in his ears. Forgot to set the timer for its auto shutdown.</p><p>Shrugging his shoulders back, the boy made a strangled exhale, because his chest was quite compressed from sitting sleep, and there was a rolling stone in his throat. It was just a side effect of Adderall, but right now Eddie couldn't get a bottle of water, he would do it as he got out of the cramped coach into– his father’s equally cramped car. Everything in this town will be terribly cramped for him.</p><p>Tucking the airpods into the charger, Eddie tucked it into his jacket pocket, wincing at the artificial yellow light from the coach. Outside the window it was rather dark. The daylight hours had got shorter and it was getting dark much earlier. The boy yawned, tucking a pillow for his head into his backpack, leaving him not quite buttoned up, because it could be closed completely only under some miracle that his mother was doing.  Every mom is like that, Eddie once discussed it with friends. And again a certain sadness took over him, which was not the time for it now.</p><p>Sniffing, the guy threw the backpack over himself and carefully lifted the cage with the rat, all this time standing at his feet. Pinky actively stirred, blinking her small black eyes, which caused Eddie to smile slightly. He got off the coach as a last person, glancing and trying to find a not very tall man of about forty. His father was like that. And he finally found the one that was looking for somebody.</p><p>Someone was calling a taxi, someone hugged relatives or friends, and in all this evening din Eddie looked at the man with the same wide eyes as his, whose face was surrounded by a thousand dust particles due to the fake light. Eddie even had an itchy nose. The man, overcoming his evident surprise, moved in his direction. Oh, he's shorter than Eddie remembered. They were almost the same height.</p><p>“Eddie.”</p><p>“Father,” the boy nodded to him, sniffing from nerves again. They couldn't even hug now because of the cage with Pinky in Eddie's arms.</p><p>“Hey, kid. Is it your suitcase?” someone called from behind him, and Kaspbrak turned around.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry. I'll take it!” Filip answered the driver, going up to the suitcase. And Eddie had to watch the picture of how a grown-up man could not cope with pulling out the handle of an ordinary suitcase.</p><p>It couldn't have been worse, Eddie felt such wild embarrassment right now, looking at it. At least the father didn't deal with the handle for five minutes. He smiled awkwardly at Eddie as he walked back to him. The boy answered him with a quick forced smile, digging his fingers into the cage harder.</p><p>“How is the road?” asked the man as if from duty.</p><p>“Everything was fine,” Eddie said, not even thinking to remember how he complained to himself when he wrote that letter.</p><p>“Probably tired?” Filip said in a tired voice.</p><p>Eddie couldn’t fully call him real “father”, and “dad” even more so. It was kind of wild. No, Filip was not one of those who abandon his family, Sonia was just not going to leave New York and wanted to raise Eddie by herself. Filip continued to send congratulations on every holiday and called Eddie at least one time in every three weeks, but every telephone conversation was pretty awkward and kind of the same scenario, despite Eddie's ADHD. He was simply not interested in communicating with his father, he’d never thought that Filip would somehow affect his life. But now Eddie was in Portland and was going to live here side by side with this man for nine months.</p><p>After asking the boy just nodded and Filip asked him to follow him to the faded gray Ford Galaxy, which was more of a family car. As far as Eddie knew, Filip hadn't found anyone else after Sonia, so why he needed such a car is an interesting question.</p><p>The drive to his father's house was just awkward until Eddie called his mother to say that he was fine and that his father had already met him. Sonia always knew how to defuse the situation between them with her incoherent repetitive chatter. So, reminding Filip (for the hundredth time, Eddie had no doubt) that Eddie's pills should be monitored so that he does not overdo it, what he needs to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that he needs to be forced to hang his daily schedule on the fridge and duplicate it in his room, what– and much more things, Sonia finally passed out, not forgetting to say good night to both of them.</p><p>When the call ended, both exhaled loudly at the same time, and then glanced at each other, starting to laugh.</p><p>“Has she always been like this?” Eddie asked with a smile, looking at his father, who turned the steering wheel to the right at the intersection.</p><p>“Since childhood. She loved to command,” the father responded with a nostalgic smile, already looking at the road.</p><p>Eddie looked at his sunken cheeks, a little frowning eyebrows because of the concentration on the road, with a slight bump on his nose, which he did not take over, and thought that in general he was quite similar to him. In any case, Eddie's brown eyes and slightly curly chocolate hair came from him. Well, as the lush eyebrows, which Kaspbrak had to pluck, so that they at least have a shape. But his father, obviously, neglected it, because they stuck out in different directions.</p><p>Eddie yawned again, noticing them pulling up to a low, one-story wide house. Hell, there will probably be only one bathroom.  Suppressing a desperate groan, Eddie climbed out of the car, lifting the cage at his feet, and followed his father when he pulled the suitcase out of the trunk (this time dealing with the handle faster).</p><p>Eddie immediately looked around inside after Filip turned on the light. Not so bad. He was expecting some kind of ossified bachelor's hut, but no, everything was tidied up. The furniture was not very new, somewhat faded, but he didn't notice any horrors that Eddie had time to imagine.</p><p>“Hungry?” the man asked, and Eddie turned to him. Huh, in the light of the lanterns he didn't even notice that both of them were wearing dark blue jackets, but Eddie had it unbuttoned, when his father's zipper reached the middle of his chest.</p><p>“No, I would just take a shower and go to bed. Very tired,” Kaspbrak answered.</p><p>“Sure. Come on, put up the cage and I'll show you where the bathroom is.”</p><p>Eddie followed his father, and when he, having introduced him quickly to the house, went to his room (saying to call him in case of need) the boy quickly began to wash off all the dirt that he felt during the whole trip. He tried not to dwell on how squeezed he felt in such a narrow bathtub with a ten-year renovation and the absence of his soft, but heavy bamboo towels, which his mother said not to take so as not to take up space in the suitcase. He didn’t brush his teeth because all things were still in the suitcase, and he just rinsed out his mouth.  Wrapping some kind of terry blue towel around his hips, Eddie went to "his" room, unbuttoning his suitcase and taking out his pajamas lying on top.</p><p>Pulling on a new underwear, shorts and a T-shirt, Eddie fell into bed and only then remembered about the headphones. He got out of bed again, finding the phone in his jacket, and pursed his lips when he saw him with Will and Harry on the lock screen.</p><p>From the screen, there guys were looking at him with wide smiles. Him, then one with straight dark-blond hair on the shoulders, large bright white teeth and a mole under the lips. The second was with very dark skin and an hair that was tailed out on the hairpins, that Eddie's palm touched. The boy sighed, going into Spotify, turning in the playlist that his friends did for him in case of a move, and took out the headphones. The phone was on a charge (with the music off timer turned on after ten minutes), and Eddie went back to bed.</p><p><em> ♪ Oh, I know that there'll be better days,<br/>
Oh, that sunshine 'bout to come my way ♪ </em>⁴</p><p>Eddie sniffed. He seemed to have caught a cold because of the air conditioner that rat-afraid lady was turning on. Or maybe he was just sad.</p><p><em> ♪ Waking up in California,<br/>
But these clouds, they won't go away,<br/>
Every day is like another storm, yeah,<br/>
I'm just trying not to go insane ♪ </em>⁴</p><p>Unfortunately, Eddie doesn't have California, only Maine. And if in the largest city in California, Los Angeles, there were almost 4 million people, then in Portland there will hardly be 70 thousand.</p><p><em> ♪ May we never ever shed another tear for today,<br/>
'Cause oh, I know that there'll be better days ♪ </em>⁴</p><p>Eddie sniffles, feeling an involuntary tear on his cheek, and squeezes the pillow tighter, tucking his knees under him. He doesn't believe in it.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<h3> NOTES </h3>
<p>¹ Take Me Home Country Roads - John Denver<br/>
² I Love New York - Madonna / Glee Cast<br/>
³ Stop Crying Your Heart Out - Oasis<br/>
⁴ Better Days - OneRepublic</p><p> </p><p>kochanie [kohane] - a loved one (Polish)<br/>
drogie [drogi] - dear (Polish)</p><p> It is an experiment for me, so– </p><p> The translation takes a lot of time, so it will not be feedback, I don’t think I’ll translate the future next chapters. </p>
<h3></h3>
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